3.08.2011

Whoops! Another Quinntopia Mistake!

Hopefully my mistakes can help others avoid repeating the same thing! The photo above shows some straight track sections between the leads/turnouts for the freight yard and the passenger terminal / locomotive facility. These straight track sections are new, as they replace a couple of switches that I previously had installed between the curves. Knowledgeable track-planners and layout builders will have spotted my error where the previously installed turnouts were located in the image of my original track plan below....

The problem with the above alignment has to do with physics or something. It doesn't matter though, what does matter is that the placement of the left hand turnout was a derailment magnet for many locomotives that should have been going straight through. Diverging was better, but a switch needs to be reliable in both directions. Fortunately, this switch was redundant and unnecessary so I could remove it. It did require that I re-ballast and repair the area (also means I have to patch my brand new control panel already!). Ahhh....such are the joys of layout building. I remembered reading about this type of placement after a curve following the 10th derailment (and checking the alignment of the points, etc...), even though it was mainly my Class 03 and Class 44 that were derailing, my Tee and Class 66 also had problems.

Speaking of the passenger terminal...here's a shot of the stub end itself with a few members of the fleet lined up....

The 'platform' in the above folder is just a sintra template until I can build - or buy - real 'platforms. I'm thinking of building most of them myself, although I expect I may buy some butterfly platform covers. This is fun stuff!

The locomotive facility is basically a two track stub...haven't decided if I'll add a 'shed' yet...that can wait. For now its just nice to have a place to park locomotives 'out of the way'! The area behind these two locomotives is plain....lots of scenery still needs to be done of course!

And finally- after over a year- cars have returned to the streets of Quinntopia! People haven't made it yet...I'm still concerned that I need one more final vacuum with the shop-vac before I start applying people! Although I had the streets lettered and decal-ed since the Holidays, I needed to add some 'weathering' to the streets to give them a more realistic look. It turned out okay, but its good enough for now....sometimes its nice to stop a project at a certain point and move on to something else....I can always do more street weathering at a later time.

3 comments:

I'm by no means an expert in track design, but based on Armstrong it looks like a classic example of an S curve. That short area of straight track between the start of the curve and the turnout is probably making it worse too; he seems to say that if you have to position a turnout like this, have the least amount of distance between it and the curve, or have a passenger car length, not something in between.

About Me

I'm into N Scale to have fun. Growing up my Dad was really big into HO (U.S.A. of course, mostly Western U.S. roads like Great Northern, Milwaukee Road, Northern Pacific, etc...) and he built me a small N Scale layout which I enjoyed as a small boy. Of the various trains I had at the time, the brand 'Minitrix' stuck in my head. As the years passed, N Scale was forgotten as new interests took my time.
As a new parent, I got back into model trains through O Gauge (Lionel and MTH). However, the cost of this scale, and the space needed for the sort of layout I wanted, made it a very frustrating hobby. Then one day at a hobby shop in California, I came across the Trix 2003 catalog; Inside this catalog were beautiful models of trains across Europe shown on beautiful layouts - and I was converted! It took a few years, but most of the O Gauge was sold (or stored) and I used the funds to start my new fantasy in N Scale.
Soon, I also discovered the amazing trains of Japan in N Scale, and begin my quest to build an interesting urban layout in a complete fantasy setting where the great trains of the world can run side by side!